Liquor Bottles Sold In India Will Have A Health Warning From 1st April

According to a report by the Hindustan Times, liquor bottles being sold in India will all have a health warning on the labels. These will warn the consumers about the effects of alcohol on health along with statutory warnings on drinking and driving. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has come up with this new labelling last year and looks like it is going to be a reality in a matter of days.

Statutory Warning On Liquor Bottles

The report further says that the notification sent to the alcoholic beverages manufacturers was to put warning like, ‘Consumption of alcohol is injurious to health’ and ‘Be safe: Don’t drink and drive’ on the bottle labels. The letters of these warnings are to be in all caps and of the minimum size of 1.5 mm on bottles up to 200 ml and of  3mm on bottles containing more than 200 ml of alcohol. This labelling comes under the new Food Safety and Standards (Alcoholic Beverages Standards) Regulation, 2018. The rule applies to all distilled alcoholic beverages like brandy, country liquor, gin, rum, vodka and whisky, liqueur or alcoholic cordial, along with wine and beer.

“Alcoholic beverages are also regulated under the food safety Act. However, there were no labelling regulations created under the Act so far because of which the manufacturers used to follow the excise laws and standards set by the Bureau of Indian Standards. Now that we have created regulations, these will have to be adhered to,” Pawan Aggarwal, chief executive officer of FSSAI told the Hindustan Times. The label must also contain the amount of alcohol and allergen warnings while steering away from adding any nutritional information, or any health claim as well as implication of being ‘non-intoxicating’ on beverages which have more than 0.5% alcohol by volume.